Originally posted by Tinuva I apologize for bringing this up again. For some reason this plugin still states that my card does not have EAX-RAM though I did grab this from my unreal tournament 3 log.

Hmm interesting, I don't have EAX-RAM so it's quite hard to figure out what's going on here (especially as I'm using the SDK samples to detect it just like they do).

I'll make a note of it and see if there's something odd in the way I'm trying to read it. There seem to be two ways to detect OpenAL Extensions and the SDK uses the longer fashion so I'll try the normal way and see what happens.

I don't think it's worth wasting code and time on something you're not even going to use. I mean X-RAM is useless for purpose we're trying to achieve here. So if you ask me it would be easier to just ditch this feature (X-RAM) so ppl won't even bother with it.

Originally posted by RejZoR I don't think it's worth wasting code and time on something you're not even going to use. I mean X-RAM is useless for purpose we're trying to achieve here. So if you ask me it would be easier to just ditch this feature (X-RAM) so ppl won't even bother with it.

It was never going to be implemented as it isn't really required for music. If anything that line will be removed to avoid confusion.

It is the same thing that drives to me to have better equipment. For example a better sound card + received and speakers (3 way speakers instead of 1 way speakers of the logitech z5500's).

I knew someone was going to moan and say its not necessary but I am sure as a coder it would be interesting to know why.

I am pretty sure Creative said the same thing when they wanted to remove features which didn't work out too easy in their Vista drivers, and look where that got them today. They have a worse name than what they truly deserve being called scammers/cheaters instead of just poor support.

Anyway less offtopic.

The plugin seem to be at a real good stable state for now, I still haven't found another problem since 0.6.1, though I was wondering what you had in mind doing with the plugin once you have it at a stable state.

I know some people asked about the EFX that openal support however I am not sure if thats the best first thing to implement once the plugin is stable. Me personally, I'd like to see this plugin at the same level as the directsound plugin, that is the fading at the start/end of songs as well as a continuous stream output and the removing of silence parts. out_dsound came a long way and I think they implemented a lot more than one can see though maybe not all necessary.

I am not imposing this maybe we should hear other people's thoughts on this as well.

The direction of the plugin will be directed by the users. I've had a play with stereo expansion (so you can put it on 4 speakers rather than 2) and EFX but I dont really see the need for either of those (I prefer a clean sound).

So yeh if you guys want things such as cross fading, fading in and out and silence removal and so then please list it here on on My Forum.

Depending on what you come up with I'll probably start to open up the source code for some external help and patches and start working on some kind of roadmap.

People were saying there is no need for OpenAL output plugin.
You were the only one brave enough to just code the thing without even questioning that.
And it sounds far better than DirectSound under Vista using X-Fi, thats for sure. It's more and more stable with each release and if you'll be able to impliment few cool effects, thats fine too. In that case i'd vote for Dolby Prologic and Dolby Virtual Surround like effects. But certanly not top priority as i wanted OpenAL so it bypasses Windows mixer and outputs sound as it is without distorting it.

My system configuration is Vista Ultimate SP1 x64, Auzen X-Fi Prelude with latest driver, Winamp 5.531. I've tried a clean uninstall/reinstall of Winamp as described in the forum FAQ, with OpenAL being the only extra plugin installed. I've tried all three X-Fi operation modes (Entertainment, Game, Audio Creation). I've tried all versions of the plugin from v0.5.x to v0.6.1. Is there anyone who's successfully using the OpenAL plugin with a similar configuration?

In Vista x64, there are two separate directories for 32-bit and 64-bit libraries:

\Windows\System32 <- 64-bit DLLs
\Windows\SysWOW64 <- 32-bit DLLs

When 32-bit programs try to access the System32 directory, they actually see the contents of SysWOW64. Winamp, being a 32-bit application, should also be using the 32-bit DLLs (such as OpenAL32.dll) in SysWOW64. I'm not sure, but it seems that for some reason Winamp was using the 64-bit OpenAL32.dll library, because when I copied the OpenAL32.dll from SysWOW64 into the Winamp directory, the OpenAL plugin started working flawlessly, without any crashes.

So, my problem has been solved. Thanks to Tinuva for the hint. And thanks to gameschild for the plugin

gameschild, thanks a lot for making this plugin. The high cpu usage of audiodg.exe was preventing me from using winamp in vista. Your openal plugin works flawlessly on my machine, a rather old one at that, a P4 1.6 ghz, 1 gig ram, with creative audigy 2 and vista ultimate.

Can I quickly ask you guys what the CPU usage of Winamp is when running? Just noticed mine was running higher than usual (20%) and wondering if that's because it's on Software rather than Hardware (because on laptop not desktop etc)

I have a soundcard X-Fi Xtrememusic that is doing all the sound processing. When my CPU did the processing, it was around 20% or higher, which is why I so bad needed an OPENAL plugin. Vista and the Directsound output (which is unsupported in Vista) plus the soundcard's native sound enhancements equaled high CPU usage.

Now droping the Alchmey.dll (for creative soundcards) into the Winamp folder helped, but it is nowhere as effeciant has having your plugin.

Can I quickly ask you guys what the CPU usage of Winamp is when running? Just noticed mine was running higher than usual (20%) and wondering if that's because it's on Software rather than Hardware (because on laptop not desktop etc)

Can I quickly ask you guys what the CPU usage of Winamp is when running? Just noticed mine was running higher than usual (20%) and wondering if that's because it's on Software rather than Hardware (because on laptop not desktop etc)

When I use winamp with openal on hardware, it is on exactly 0%, when I have it on software its also 0% but jump to 1 and 2% at times.

My total CPU usage though is never 0% because the DDL usually takes up 1-4% at times not sure why it differs.

I was expecting same or worse performance from start, since this card doesn't have any kind of hardware acceleration and Dsound plugin is already very mature and thus more stable. I only bought this card it because the internal one has a lot of noise.

I have another problem, but I am not sure if its this plugin or driver related.

The problem only happen when DDL is enabled and only with the DDL part. When I listen to music with the openal output plugin after some time listening regular songs 2-5 minute long songs, the front right speaker will start skipping. The only way to fix it is to disable and re-enable DDL.

This also affects games, but only if I had winamp playing while playing the game. Then both the front right and back right speaker starts skipping.

As a test I added headphones to the analog output on the sound card (Auzen X-Fi Prelude) and turned up the analog volume so that I can hear the music playing on both the headphones and the amp. The skipping starts on the speakers but on the headphones the music continuous to play perfectly.

The problem is, if I play openal games and Winamp is using the direct sound output plugin this doesn't happen.

My opinion so far is, it could be either the drivers or something in the plugin that triggers this which will then also be a problem in the drivers.

Just thought I'd let you know however I don't think its something you can fix.

This is on Win XP x64, I will try later with other OS's when I get around to install Vista for example.

Dolby Digital Live (DDL) is a real-time encoding technology for interactive media such as video games. It converts any audio signals on a PC or game console into the 5.1-channel Dolby Digital format and transports it via a single S/PDIF cable.[1] A similar technology known as DTS Connect is available from competitor DTS.

Dolby Digital Live is currently available in sound cards from manufacturers such as Turtle Beach[2], HT OMEGA SYSTEM[3], Auzentech[4] and Asus[5] using C-Media chipsets. The SoundStorm, used for the Xbox game console and certain nForce2-based PCs, used an early form of this technology.

DDL is also available on motherboards with codecs such as Realtek's ALC882D,[6] ALC888DD and ALC888H.

DDL is also supported by all Creative X-Fi based sound cards, but is intentionally disabled in the drivers by Creative on all but the Auzentech Prelude. A programmer by the name daniel_k has fixed these drivers in Windows Vista by un-crippling DDL and fixing other bugs and has subsequently been censored and censured by Creative for doing so. [7]

An important benefit of this technology is that it enables the use of digital multichannel sound with consumer sound cards, which are otherwise limited to PCM stereo or multichannel analog

I've tried out the modified Audigy Driver (I have the Audigy 2 Platnium Ex) and the results were fairly poor as I seem to get interuptions a lot, pauses etc. All seem to occur when the CPU is doing something so I've gone back to offical drivers.

Hehe whoops, sorry forgot to mention a few steps. Ok someone enabled DDL on the Audigy cards through a mod and the driver didnt really work for me (explains that part).

Without the hardware it's very hard to debug unless you have Visual Studio and some development/C++ knowledge but if you want to give the 0.7 version I'm working on a shot you're more than welcome. If you do I may add some more debugging so I can see what it's upto.

As you'll notice it's on SourceForge now which means you can access the source code and modify it to your hearts content. It's GPL so you'll need to do the usual (give credit/release src code mods etc) but hopefully someone will take an interest!

All the release notes etc are on there too.

Big thanks go out to Tinuva for helping during development and debugging!